So what the hell was Khan doing here?
Hakeem Khan watched the loading dispassionately from the bridge of the Taliba. If he was nervous, he did not appear so. He stood with his legs apart and his hands locked together behind his back. He stared out of the windows of the bridge through dark eyes beneath a heavy frown. He was quite bulky, but none of it was fat because of his lifestyle at sea. Despite his apparent fitness however, Khan was not a well man.
He was there on the bridge because he was not disposed to letting his captain oversee the operation. Nevertheless he managed to display a detached interest. His head moved in a spontaneous nod of satisfaction as the sling, now divested of its burden, moved upwards like the long tails of a firefly. His eyes followed them until they disappeared into the darkness above the freighter. He then turned to a huge man standing beside him.
“We are in Allah’s hands now, Malik,” he said quietly.
Malik nodded his huge head. “May He be praised.”
There were two other men on the bridge with Khan and Malik: the ship’s captain, Jose Maria de Leon who was a Cuban, and the duty wheelman. Khan spoke to the captain.
“It is done. Lock it away Señor de Leon. I will be in my cabin.”
De Leon moved towards the bridge telephone but before he could pick it up, the wireless operator called through from the wireless room.
De Leon and Khan exchanged glances. De Leon stepped through into the wireless room. A few moments later he called through to Khan.
“You had better take this, sir. They have a problem.”
Khan frowned and walked into the wireless room. The captain handed him the headset which he pressed to his ear. De Leon watched intently.
“When was this?” Khan asked sharply. “And you have the body on board?”
He lifted his face upwards and shook his head in despair.
“And he has papers on him?” He listened. “His name?”
The others watched Khan as his face froze.
“Mother of God.” He looked at de Leon. “Get the cage ready.”
He threw the headset on to the radio table. “Tell them to stand by,” he ordered the wireless operator. “I’m going on board.” He turned to Malik. “You too.”
There was just a hint of dawn breaking on the far horizon as Marsh thought he could see movement on the bridge of the Taliba. Two figures moved hurriedly down the stairway from the bridge to the lower deck. Beyond them he saw the cage being hooked up to the derrick crane. It was a shark cage, used to allow divers to study shark behaviour in safety. The two figures stepped inside the cage and it was lifted up and swung across to the deck of the freighter. One of them looked like Khan. He didn’t recognise the second figure in the cage.
Marsh assumed this was part of the illegal business that was being conducted. Perhaps Khan was going over to the freighter to pay for whatever contraband had been delivered; for Marsh was convinced it had to be contraband of one kind or another. As the cage disappeared from Marsh’s view he pushed the thought from his mind and began to consider his own position and what he could do.
On the deck of the freighter, Khan stood over the dead body of Greg Walsh. Water still dripped from Walsh’s body, forming small, red pools on the deck of the freighter. He had been laid on his back, and in the torchlight could be clearly seen small blossoms of flowering red on his clothing. Khan stared at it.
“There was no-one else?” he asked at length.
The captain of the freighter glanced up. “No.”
Khan’s eyes just flickered towards him; then they were back on the pale, dead face.
“Why?” he muttered softly to himself. “Why were you here?”
Malik heard the whisper and sensed the urgent query in his Khan’s voice.
“Coincidence?” he offered. “A chance in a thousand?”
Khan looked at him. “We would like to think so, wouldn’t we Malik? But I fear that is not the case.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Throw him back into the sea and let his secrets go with him. The sharks will not go hungry.”
He stared at Walsh’s dead face for a little longer. Then he knelt down and placed the tip of his finger on Walsh’s chin.
“Why were you here Walsh? Why?”
He stood up and walked back to the cage in silence. Malik followed.
As they swung back over to the Taliba, Khan’s face was fused into a deep scowl. A small pain nagged at his chest; the familiar pain that the doctor’s had warned him about. He lifted his hand and massaged his chest.
A single doubt now lay in his mind. For the first time in many weeks it occurred to him that others might know.
Marsh had been transfixed by the comings and goings between the two ships, but now he knew he had little time; he had to find somewhere to conceal himself. Khan was unlikely to be on the freighter too long completing whatever business it was he was conducting; the ships would have move on soon. Certainly once Khan was back on board.
There were two lifeboats secured on their davits, one either side of the ship. Choosing the lifeboat furthest away from the freighter, and away from the direction most eyes might look, Marsh ran at a crouch towards the boat. He climbed up on to the steelwork of the davits and slipped beneath the tarpaulin covering the boat.
The darkness closed in on him as he settled down in the bottom of the lifeboat. He had no plan and didn’t know what he was going to do. He certainly had no hope of rescue. Whatever happened now would be in the hands of God.
Or in the hands of Hakeem Khan!
Chapter 3
Francesini drew heavily on the Cuban cigar and leaned back in his chair. On his desk in front of him was an open folder. It was the detail gathered on the unfortunate man he had seen in the hospital at Cape Canaveral, dying of radiation sickness. The man’s fingerprints and DNA had revealed nothing at all from an extensive search in the C.I.A. files. Neither had the check that Francesini had ordered on all suspected Taliban operatives in the United States. He had pulled the man’s file because he had been told the man was dead, and this meant he was of no further use to Francesini, except to continue worrying the life out of him.
The phone rang. He blew the smoke out of his mouth and picked up the receiver.
“Francesini.”
“Starling here. My office please Remo.” The gravelly voice had just time enough to resonate in his ear before the phone went dead. James Starling could be laconic when he wanted to be. Telephone conversations for him were always apt to be short; he preferred face to face chats.
Francesini knew the rules. He put the phone down and put his cigar in the ash tray, carefully removing the glowing ember. He then removed the files from his desk and locked them away in his safe. Satisfied that he had left nothing out on his desk, he locked the door and made his way over to Admiral Starling’s office.
The sign on the door said: Admiral J. Starling, Deputy Director (Ops). He knocked and walked in.
There were two men in the room with James Starling. Francesini recognised them immediately. One was Hamilton Ford who worked for the Directorate of Science and Technology, the department in the C.I.A. responsible for gathering external intelligence from technical resources. The other was Jimmy Navarro, a senior intelligence analyst who worked with Ford. Admiral Starling was sitting at his desk, dominating the room. He waved Francesini to a vacant chair.
“Sit down Remo. Thanks for coming over.” As if Francesini had any option. “You know Hamilton and Jimmy, so no introductions necessary,” Francesini made himself as comfortable as possible in the remaining empty chair. Starling waited until he was still.